The present invention relates to a pocket conveyor.
In particular, the present invention relates to a pocket conveyor extending along a mixtilinear path and comprising a flexible conveying belt, at least one conveying pocket, and connecting means interposed between the conveying belt and the pocket to enable the pocket to move with the conveying member along said path.
The present invention is particularly advantageous for use on conditioning machines employed in the tobacco industry, to which the following description refers purely by way of example.
In the tobacco industry, conditioning-packing machines are employed whereby groups of cigarettes are fed from a hopper inside respective pockets of a conveyor, which moves the pockets along a mixtilinear, in particular an endless, path. Each pocket is substantially U-shaped, is connected to an endless flexible conveying member normally defined by a chain, and normally comprises a front and rear connection connected respectively to the front and rear end of the same link in the chain to maintain the same distance at all times between the connections of the pocket alongside variations in the shape of the path portion traveled by the pocket.
Pocket conveyors of the type described above have several drawbacks, foremost of which are the invariable slack and high noise level of the chain.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,585 A1 discloses a pocket conveyor wherein a flexible toothed belt is fitted with conveying pockets equally spaced along the belt, and wherein each pocket is connected to the belt by a first and a second connecting member, both hinged to the belt and both having at least one degree of freedom with respect to the pocket. The pocket conveyor disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,585 A1 reduces considerably the slack and high noise level with respect to a known chain conveyor, thus at least partially overcoming the aforementioned drawbacks; however, when feeding the belt conveyor with articles, each pocket tends to oscillate in a direction parallel with the feeding direction (in particular in the curved portion of the path) and this kind of oscillation is particularly harmful, because it tends to seriously damage the belt and of the connecting member, thus introducing a variable (i.e. random) error in the position of the pockets.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a pocket conveyor designed to eliminate the aforementioned drawbacks.
According to the present invention, there is provided a pocket conveyor having a particular connection between a pocket and a flexible conveyor belt to permit the pocket to follow the belt along its path of travel without damage to the belt.